Reservation of educational seats – Indian Education System

Reservation, the topic for debate for decades. A topic for which everybody has a say, yet none matters in the real scenario. Ask anybody, they will say whatever the govt. is doing, whether it does anything or not, is wrong. I remember the movie “Aarakshan” which had sparked off this debate another time and I still try to ponder over their practicality, whether they are right or wrong.

No reservation – it will be really tough for the lower castes to improve. The more the ostracism, the lesser the chances to develop. Today we have lower castes, featuring in respectable portfolios, and they get their opportunity for respect. That’s certainly needed, so doing away with reservations is certainly not a good reckoning, at least in the short run.

Bring up separate institutions for the lower castes – that’s certainly not the solution as we have seen what had happened to the Muslim separate electorate, leading to the formation of Pakistan. So this plan is irrational, it’s a waste discussing about it.

U can have the same competition, if the starting line is the same – and the starting line is not the same, because the lower castes have faced social stigma for years. Now, some questions prop up. Will reservation solve the problem of social stigma? And what about them who have already settled in cities (where castes seldom have a mention), pulling in thick wads of money? Really a point of concern.

Now we have the option of introducing a creamy layer concept for the SCs and STs. And for those who say in rural areas, money is not the only solution for equality, why not introduce a ‘region based caste reservation? We have the entire stats of rural and urban population, taken in our census, what is wrong in granting them a card showing their present place of stay, their caste and their income? We can have reservation for

The urban lower class with low incomes (upto the APL category). The income can be calculated from their income tax over a period, say, the last 5 years, those exempted from tax, ie the unorganised sector will get reserved status automatically.

The rural lower class. The place of stay can be determined from their stay the last census. Revision every 10 years during census is reasonable.
Anybody in the BPL category.

Now, the biggest and the most important question- will the caste identity ever be cleaned from our culture? Of course, I m not talking about vote bank politics, my call is to the educated and enlightened mass who are concerned about the future of the society as a whole and who can decide with their brains about their leaders. A question to everybody- is it necessary for somebody to have a caste?

When we have atheists, why can’t we have non-casteists? Why can’t the caste column of every form be left blank? Why should our ancestors come in our identity? The same recurring difficulty- identity by birth. It has been impregnated into our brains so deeply that many of us take it to be a natural boundary. And it is greater than religion- its highly rigid. So, why not have a group which throws away the notions of caste? Yes, there may be the opinion that it won’t attract many, so why not have a reservation for this category, even if its just 5%? We expect an India where caste feelings are vanished completely among every person, so why can’t we do it in the best possible manner? Throw it out from the root itself.

Food for thought. ‘I m not a casteist, no reply can be more befitting than this. Yes, everything depends on the law-brokers, but I hope these views will occupy a space of every thinking and progressive brain.

One Comment

The two cases refer to reservations in super-speciality medical courses, wherein the Supreme Court had stated that ‘there should really be no reservation’. The rationale given was that improving higher education was in the general interest of the country, and quality of medical services needed to be good.